161: Growth, Football and Biohacking with NFL Kicker Steve Hauschka

Feb 27, 2018

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This week’s episode is a wide ranging conversation with NFL kicker Steven Hauschka. I met Steve when he was playing with the Seattle Seahawks and floating at Float Seattle; now he plays for the Buffalo Bills. He’s got an interesting take on things; he’s a thoughtful guy, a biohacker and always looking for techniques and tips to be his absolute best. We talk about mediation, athletes speaking their minds, techniques for optimal performance, tribalism, life after football, society in general and much more!

Podcasting and the Joe Rogan Experience (3:30)

Steve has been a long time Joe Rogan's Podcast listener and when he’s always wondered what it was like to be one of the guests. It’s a tricky thing because you could be exposed when you talk for an hour, it is not just a premeditated interview! That’s what makes podcasts so interesting: it’s actually just a conversation. That is the beauty of it too. You really get to know the people and get to see everything.

Going Deeper With Athletes (10:00)

With publications like Derek Jeter’s Players Tribune, athletes write articles themselves and share their experiences. And may come as a surprise to some that Steve insists that athletes are definitely as human as it gets with just as many flaws and issues as everyone else in the world. To be able to speak openly or as openly we can think that we can get in the fact that, millions and millions people are going to read exactly what we write.

Steve feels like there is a shift coming in the way that we consume media and in the way we understand story telling so that outlets like the players should be in or blogs by athletes because we are so visible and we mean so much to such a giant group of people and they want to hear the opinion about X or Y or Z. If it is all filtered through just blurb after blurb, there is nothing there.

Growth And Repair (19:40)

Steve says that if we break it down, it's not really that complicated to get like good work out but we see all these information with all those stupid products. People try to sell gym memberships - they don’t care if we go to the gym - they just want to sell you the membership.

We get these different machines but nobody knows how to use them, so once again we have to weed your way through that –“what’s the best in there and I have figured out that the bodies are incredible, if you can invest your time and body, you feel amazing, you just feel amazing”, we need to get private instruction at the beginning just to learn it.

Growth For 2018 (34:10)

Even though you know people are working all year and a lot of people skip their vacations or they are banking their vacations for later, there is still opportunities for everybody to continue to dig or continue to fact find and find resources that help them in their life.

In terms of Steve’s growth for 2018, the goal is research. He essentially had to find a new formula for success in Buffalo because he saw different therapist in the Luciano area and he had a specific workout routine. When we are working with different people, there is no way to keep it the same. So he knew he had to find a new system in Buffalo.

Part of this he was able to maintain and part of this was like he had to take a step back and think- what’s going on here, what I need to work on and he want to act on basics, He is going to work with his foundation with his trainer. He is investing his time in those two things. It’s not always about what you do but how you do it.

He also bought himself a pair of rollerblades. Because when were rollerblades ever not cool?

Stresses of Football (41:00)

Being an NFL kicker can certainly have its stresses. "We put in all the work, you have your program and we are going to do that no matter what, and then things can happen that are totally out of our control." NFL kickers are specifically expected to be perfect and this combination of perfectionism and uncertainty can weigh on anyone.

Tribalism (45:10)

It's in our DNA to worry about what the other members of the tribe think. We connect our identities to these ideas and then when people have a different opinion, we enter Fight or Flight mode since you're defending your own identity. We have to realize it's great we have different opinions; it's how we form a better future and evolve our culture.

Best Parts of Football (52:00)

"There's an amazing ability to spread positivity when you play for a football team," Steve says. In his first couple of years in Seattle, he saw the city improve alongside the team on their way to being Super Bowl champions. There are infinite opportunities for good, like meeting 5 year old Madeline Herman, a pediatric cancer patient with whom he developed a friendship and was able to shine a light on.

Life After Football (62:15)

At the end of the day, we just need more awareness. If people are more aware, they will pass that on to other people who will make good decisions with the best interests of humanity in mind.

Meditating (75:25)

Steve says that if there was one thing people were to take away from this episode, it would be to meditate. That’s the tool. There’s a constant flow of things into our lives for our brains to handle and you've gotta give it some time to breathe.

"Meditating is the superpower that nobody uses but everbody has. You’re never gonna 'get there'. There’s no end-goal, there’s no winning; that’s why they call it a practice."

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